1 Lions Roar

From Digha Nikaya, Sutta 8 22. Kassapa, it may be that wanderers of other sects
will say: ”The ascetic Gotama roars his lion’s roar, but only in empty places, not
in company.” They should be told that this is not true: ”The ascetic Gotama
roars his lion’s roar, and he roars it in company.” Or they may say: ”The ascetic
Gotama roars his lion’s roar, and in company, but he does so without
conﬁdence.” They should be told that this is not true: ”The ascetic Gotama roars
his lion’s roar, in company and conﬁdently.” Or they may say: ”The
ascetic Gotama roars his lion’s roar, and in company, and conﬁdently, but
they do not question him.” They should be told that this is not true:
”The ascetic Gotama roars his lion’s roar..and they question him.” Or
they may say: ”..and they question him, but he does not answer.” ...Or
they may say: ”...he answers, but he does not win them over with his
answers.”... Or they may say: ”..he wins them over with his answers, but they
don’t ﬁnd it pleasing.” .. Or they may say: ”...they ﬁnd it pleasing but
they are not satisﬁed with what they have heard.” ... Or they may say:
”...they ﬁnd it pleasing and are satisﬁed with what they have heard, but
they don’t behave as if they were satisﬁed.” .. Or they may say: ”...they
behave as if they were satisﬁed, but they are not on the path of truth.” ...
Or they may say: ”.. they are on the path of truth, but they are not
satisﬁed with the practice.” They should be told that this is not true:
”The ascetic Gotama roars his lion’s roar, in company and conﬁdently,
they question him and he answers, he wins them over with his answers,
they ﬁnd it pleasing and are satisﬁed with what they have heard, they
behave as if they were satisﬁed, they are on the path of truth, and they
are satisﬁed with the practice.” That, Kassapa, is what they should be
told.

2 Sermon

A band called Storyhill has a question in their lyrics I have been thinking about.
The question is: ”If faith can move a mountain, tell me, what can move my
faith?” There are many things I have faith about. I have faith that when I am
speeding down the highway at around a mile a minute, the cars on the other side
of a painted line will not crash into me. I have faith that little pieces of colored
paper have worth (holding up a dollar bill). I have faith that humanity can still
be around 100,000 years from now. I have faith that science is the best
way of ﬁnding out information for the types of questions that science
can answer. I have faith that I have made mistakes, or maybe I have
experience on that one, and I have faith that I will make more mistakes in the
future.

The ﬁrst deﬁnition the online dictionary Wiktionary has for faith is “A
feeling, conviction or belief that something is true, real, or will happen.” I act on
my beliefs as if many things are true, even tho I know that they are not always
true. As I go thru my list of beliefs I have faith in, I realize that they all are
wrong sometimes. Cars cross the centerline and crash, money can become
worthless, humans are completely capable of destroying ourselves long before
100,000 years, science can be wrong, and someday I will make my last
mistake.

I have faith despite the times when I have seen my beliefs contradicted. Yet
the events of my life have aﬀected what I believe. It goes both ways since my
beliefs aﬀect how I interpret my experiences, and my experiences shape my
belief.

Of course, there are many causes that make it possible to misinterpret our
perceptions. Thru the centuries, individuals have had many diﬀerent religious
experiences. Two example religious experiences are mystics experiencing being
out of body, or a Christian experiencing God talking to them. At least
some of those centuries of religious experiences are inconsistent with
the religious experiences of other individuals. They are not all mutually
consistent. It seems to me that in at least some of them, people think they are
experiencing more than they really are. They get more out the experience than
what they see and thinking would allow. On the other-hand, we have to
extrapolate and extend our experiences, we don’t want to spend our lives
watching apple trees to see if any of the apples fall up instead of down to the
ground.

As I see it, there is a truth out there, however our human knowledge of
it is imperfect. Some things we know we can be quite certain of. For
example, I am quite certain that 1+1=2, um, well, to be perfectly clear,
the number after zero (hold up one ﬁnger) plus the number after zero
(hold up one ﬁnger on other hand) equals the number after the number
after zero (lower ﬁnger on one hand and raise second ﬁnger on other
hand). I am even more certain of that fact than I am of my own physical
existence. On the other hand, I believe that Garth Brooks is the best English
poet of the second half of the 20th century, but I am not very certain of
that.

Of course I have a little uncertainty in all my beliefs. As Robert T. Weston
said: ”A belief which may not be questioned binds us to error, for there is
incompleteness and imperfection in every belief.” I agree with Robert Weston. I
have developed a simple test to guess how many of my beliefs are wrong. I
assume that for my beliefs when other people believe diﬀerently than I, that at
least half the time I am the one that started out with the wrong belief. In that
case I have to change my mind or I will continue believing the wrong thing. So,
to use this test, I just think back on how many times I have changed my
mind about something important. The last two times I changed my mind
suddenly were both at the Flathead lake United Methodist church camp in
1997.

The ﬁrst instance happened when at the suggestion of the camp councilor
Huston Green, I reread the gospels. I didn’t like everything I read in the Gospels,
but I found many parts that I had forgotten about or missed the last time I had
heard them, and I changed my mind about the Christian gospels’ worth. I had
found parts I liked and found good.

In the second case, I became more accepting of homosexual individuals
because of a talk given by Carolyn, a lesbian camp councilor.

I usually don’t change my mind so quickly. In fact, I rarely change my mind.
Since I don’t change my mind very often, maybe I should hope that I
am always right. ”O Lord, grant that I may always be right, for you
know I will never change my mind.” I’m not sure that works very well in
practice.

Actually, I think it is not that I don’t change my mind, but rather, I change
my mind so slowly, I barely even realize I am changing. For example, I read Carl
Sagan’s book ”The Demon Haunted World” when I was a teenager, and then
again in my late twenties, and I was amazed at how diﬀerent a book it seemed
each time. Same book, diﬀerent me.

I have occasionally set out to ﬁnd the truth. For example, I spent several
months on and oﬀ in college trying to ﬁgure out which was more likely to be true,
the pessimistic view set forth in The Limits to Growth, by Meadows, Meadows
and Randers. This view holds that humanity is probably going to collapse in the
next hundred years, versus the alternative, more optimistic view by people
such as Julian Simon that humans would continue to invent our way out
of problems. My conclusion was that both groups made some factual
mistakes, but that either could be right, and time would be the ultimate
judge.

Discovering the truth is helped by having discussions with other people who
think diﬀerently than you. When two people have two diﬀerent ideas there
is more chance that one of them is right. I have a confession to make.
Part of the reason I am giving this sermon is that hopefully some of you
disagree with me, and so maybe I will ﬁnd out where I am wrong. And as
the Buddha discussed in our opening reading, the mark of a great idea
is that you can tell it to people, they question you, you answer, and
they leave satisﬁed and live better because of it ( Digha Nikaya, Sutta
8).

I have a friend, Brian, whom I have known since second grade. We have been
discussing religion for nearly two decades, hundreds of lunches and emails and
neither of us has yet convinced the other. We still disagree about basic
Epistemology questions such as is the Bible or science a more reliable guide to
truth. Both of us fail the Buddha’s test since we cannot convince the other. Of
course, what do we have to oﬀer each other? I cannot really speak for him,
but I only have a rock-solid faith in doubt and uncertainty to oﬀer him.
Changing the other’s mind would involve shattering his beliefs down to
the core, and then destroying those as well. Its probably not going to
happen.

In the end, I have no answer to the question of what can move my faith.
Some of my faith is very unlikely to change, but parts might change, but only
with suﬃciently large amounts of time and thought. I’ll ﬁnish with a poem I
wrote at the end of a long discussion with my friend Brian:

Argue with me, I will defend myself
Scare me, I will ﬂee
Lecture me, I may listen
Live your lesson, I will see
Only love can change the soul

3 An Essay on Man

From An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope. Portion of Epistles II

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan
The proper study of Mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A Being darkly wise, and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Sceptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic’s pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act, or rest;
In doubt to deem himself a God, or Beast;
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reas’ning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such,
Whether he thinks too little, or too much;
Chaos of Thought and Passion, all confus’d;
Still by himself, abus’d or disabus’d;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great Lord of all things, yet a prey to all,
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurl’d;
The glory, jest and riddle of the world.